The New Slavery of Moral Superiority
Driving America from culture war into civil war.
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Over the past year, the idea that we're heading towards a new American civil war has moved from fringe raving to commonplace. There's a deep divide between ordinary citizens and our leaders - we see American free enterprise as a self-evidently great force for worldwide good, but our President and his party blame the world's ills on America.
Our ruling elites act as if all the world's poverty is caused by American wealth. If they can make America poor, they believe other nations will be better off. We're sending taxpayer money to Brazil for oil exploration but won't allow new drilling, new oil refineries, natural-gas wells, new oil pipelines, or oil-shale refining here. They're trying to "skyrocket" the cost of energy to take us down.
The world financial crisis laid the issues so bare that "Culture War" isn't strong enough. Our differences are much deeper than culture. Like the first American Civil War, this war is about individual rights.
The Gathering Storm
The first Civil War was triggered when the South violated the American idea of a republic whose states could do things differently. Instead of letting the Northern states ignore slavery, the South went "in your face" with the Dredd Scott decision. This forced Northerners to personally participate in slavery by capturing and returning escaped slaves.
The South forced Northerners to rub their faces in what they considered an abomination, every hour of every waking day. It wasn't possible to compromise on slavery as had been done in the past because the North couldn't ignore it.
Mr. Lincoln declared that the nation couldn't survive half slave and half free. In the same way, our pending civil war is being driven by our liberal elites violating federalism and forcing all states to implement ideas such as gay "marriage" and abortion which many Americans consider to be abominations.
We're an amazingly tolerant people. We've put up with increased taxation, massive intrusion into our daily lives, and public sexual assaults by the TSA. Though gun sales jumped when Mr. Obama was elected, nobody seems to want to start flinging lead around.
Scragged was founded to argue for policies that would give our grandchildren better lives. Instead of worrying about what will happen to our grandchildren, however, the actions of the Obama administration have showed that it's coming to us.
What's changed? Mr. Obama spent more of tax money in his first six months than all US presidents before him, combined, spent. He's made our government so expensive that we can't afford it any more. We're borrowing roughly one-third of GNP each year.
When lenders stop lending and government checks start bouncing, violence will come. War is inevitable because we've bred generations of people who view public funds as their natural right. What's no longer given them peacefully, they'll attempt to take by force, and owners will resist.
The Issue This Time
The issue that's bringing us to the point of war is as simple as the slavery issue. One faction is convinced that the modern welfare state is morally superior to the more capitalist economy we had before the New Deal. This faction believes that it's not only right, it's required for the government to tax successful people to help the less fortunate.
Their opponents believe that workers have the right to keep what they earn. Earners believe that taxing productive people to support others, no matter how needy, is theft.
There's no real compromise between these views. The welfare state faction saw Obamacare as fulfilling a moral imperative - wealthy nations must provide all citizens with medical care. The "keep what you earn" faction saw Obamacare as a moral outrage, offering unlimited expensive medical care to people who cause their own health problems and requiring everyone to buy costly, "one size fits all" health insurance.
Welfare statists see forcing everyone to buy health insurance as necessary to get the money to take care of everyone, conservatives see it as government trampling individual liberty. If government can force us to buy health insurance and wear motorcycle helmets, can they force us to eat broccoli?
A few leftists have recognized this contradiction but don't want to do anything about it.
Nobody Wants Anyone to Starve
The "keep what you earn" faction believes in volunteer-based charity; they loathe the "social safety net" based on coerced taxation with tax money given to anyone who suffers the slightest discomfort or inconvenience.
Conservatives argue that nobody starved before the welfare state because neighborhoods and families took care of each other. They believe in individual, voluntary charity which lifts people out of poverty so they can support themselves and then look after others. Conservatives donate far more money to charities than liberals do. They measure results by the number of people who graduate out of the programs and no longer need help just as they measure school systems by the number of graduates who earn enough money to pay taxes.
Liberals measure success by the number of people who're in government programs, by the amount of money spent, and of course by recipients voting for liberal politicians. If the "social safety net" locks generation after welfare generation into poverty, so be it, particularly if they vote for more goodies at election time. Conservatives see multi-generation welfare ghettos as an abuse of the human spirit which verges on deliberate evil.
The Ongoing Greek Tragedy
We now know how the culture wars will play out - no economy can afford the welfare state. It simply isn't sustainable. Europe and America have been running on borrowed money for two generations. The money's running out, so things will change even in the home of European socialism.
The slow-moving Greek bankruptcy is a battle between ordinary Europeans and the European ruling elite. When running for President, Mr. Obama illustrated what it means to be in the elite when he referred to himself as a "fellow citizen of the world."
Elites think of themselves as enlightened beings who benefit the world at large instead of individual nations. They get together to swap ideas how best to rule us - for our own good, of course.
Greece should default, cancel debts, and go back to their own currency. Not having to pay off massive debts would make it easier to return to prosperity. Personal bankruptcy wipes out debt because when there's no way to pay, there's no point trying.
Most Greek debt is held by European national banks. Stiffing French and German banks would upset the European elites because their taxpayers would have to pay. Greek rulers don't want non-Greek elites mad at them, so they accepted a plan to increase the amount Greece will have to pay back. The way to cure Greek debt is to pile on more?
The new bailout may postpone default but will make default worse when it arrives. That's OK with Greek politicians because they'll keep their elite status in the meantime.
Greek citizens are rioting. They don't want to give up anything they're getting and they don't see why they should be taxed any more. France and Germany paid for the first bailout, but their taxpayers see no reason to pour money into Greece and plan to punish their rulers in the next election.
Why didn't the Germans or the French cut the Greeks off? Governing elites don't see themselves as French, German, or whatever, except when electioneering the rubes. The rest of the time, they're Europeans or "citizens of the world."
They salute the "Pan-European" dream where there are no national boundaries just as our elites don't believe in national boundaries. They can't let themselves help their citizens by stopping the Greek gravy train - it would hurt the Greek elites who are their friends. Greek rulers won't help Greek citizens by defaulting - that would hurt their European friends and tarnish the pan-European ideal the elites all hold so dear.
How We Got Here
The American welfare state started with the "New Deal" during the Depression. Our expectations of government changed profoundly over FDR's decade-plus in office.
As Newsweek put it in 1993, “We gradually moved from an era in which people did not want to use government for anything to today when people use government for almost everything.” The Daily Telegraph explained how Britain followed the same road:
The welfare state, as conceived by the great social reformer Sir William Beveridge and implemented by the Attlee government after the Second World War, was a sublime idea. It rescued millions of British citizens from the degradation of poverty and lifted the fear of illness. It guaranteed employment or, if jobs were not available, universal benefits. It offered security in old age.
Welfare advocates assumed that even though penalties for idleness and failure were removed, people would work as hard, be as responsible, and look after their families just as well as when survival depended on their own efforts. They assumed that the welfare system would not reduce individual work incentives so tax revenue would not fall and welfare costs would remain small.
Others argued that welfare would tempt people to be idle, but they lost the debate to the "welfare state" faction. Unfortunately, human nature didn't change - work and responsibility have became less common because they're no longer required for survival.
In 1980, T. E. Utley, chief political commentator for the Daily Telegraph, identified the problem:
"Roughly speaking, social democracy may be defined as an arrangement under which we all largely cease to be responsible for our own behaviour and in return become responsible for everyone else’s. The temptations which this way of doing things offers to synthetic anger, fraudulent penitence, all other forms of hypocrisy and the sheer evasion of duty are infinitely too strong for fallen man." [emphasis added]
Once welfare became available, people no longer had to fulfill traditional duties. Working women didn't have to raise children to care for them in their old age because government promised to care for them. Not having children is also a good way to avoid trouble with the child protection bureaucrats.
A few years ago, the Daily Mail covered a family whose grandparents were solid working people but whose current generation lives off the government. Karen Matthews, a central figure in the story, had never had regular work yet received £400 a week benefits, having had seven children by five different men.
Ms. Matthews doesn't need a husband; welfare provides her every need, and the more children she has, the more money she gets. In America, many welfare recipients have bigger families than American taxpayers.
United in Greed
Unlike welfare recipients, unionized government employees perform work, some of it useful and necessary, but they use their collective power to hold taxpayers to ransom. Union bosses invest their forcibly-extracted union dues to help elect politicians with whom they "negotiate" salary and benefits.
Our elites have allowed union contracts which make it nearly impossible to fire anyone and they've promised benefits which are bankrupting us. The unions control both sides of the negotiating table; the taxpayer who's stuck with the bill is nowhere to be seen.
Private sector unions are no better. General Motors was once the most profitable business in the world. Even at its peak, it couldn't earn enough to pay the health and pension benefits it had promised the United Auto Workers. Without going through bankruptcy which wiped out its debt and receiving a massive bailout with taxpayer money, GM would have disappeared.
Without bankruptcy to wipe out debt, there's no way Greece, Portugal, or the rest can be solvent. Even in the face of such realities, unionized employees won't accept pay cuts, pension cuts, or even work harder.
No government makes it easy to figure out just how much they've promised and they lie to make it easier to sell debt. USA Today reported that our government is going the way of Greece: unfunded obligations in the US are now at $528,000 per household.
In 2010, our government increased the amount we owe by one third of our GNP. Our "welfare state" elites have sold us down the river to the tune of more than a half million dollars per household. No matter how high taxes get, that's far, far more than we can ever repay.
Taxpayers, The Oppressed Minority
Free enterprise generated the wealth that made our welfare state possible. As excessive taxes and onerous regulations have moved us further and further from a free market, the most powerful economy history has ever known is staggering under the load of parasites and barnacles. Mr. Obama claims to understand this:
No business wants to invest in a place where the government skims 20 percent off the top, or the head of the port authority is corrupt. No person wants to live in a society where the rule of law gives way to the rule of brutality and bribery. That is not democracy, that is tyranny, and now is the time for it to end.
- President Barack Hussein Obama, on the need for reform in Africa, New York Times quote of the day, July 12, 2009
Mr. Obama learned corruption in Chicago - his administration merrily gives Obamacare waivers to favored groups in return for political support and he's imitated the Greeks in creating job-killing regulations. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that one out of every three dollars earned in the U.S. goes to pay taxes or to comply with federal laws and regulations.
Nobody invests where 20% is taken off the top, and we're worse than that; 35% of our national income covers nothing but regulations. Without massive job creation, we can't pay our current debts even if we don't borrow any more. Our government has made it too expensive to create new jobs so we're stagnating.
In 2011, Americans received more money from government than they paid in taxes. Our nation is half self-supporting responsible citizens and half who live off government. As America couldn't survive half slave and half free, the productive half of our society can't support so many people who consume more tax money than they produce.
Regardless of the morality of the welfare state versus individual responsibility, no economy can support a welfare state because too many people stop working. Working taxpayers can't support both the welfare state and unionized government employees; welfare states last only as long as lenders pick up the bills.
When German and French taxpayers get sick of supporting Greek consumers, their rulers will cut the Greeks off to save their skins. When the Chinese get tired of supporting Americans who consume more than they produce, we'll be cut off.
Margaret Thatcher warned, "The trouble with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money." Welfare states run on borrowed money. When nobody lends, it all comes crashing down.
A Ray of Hope
Some of the European elites understand this. David Cameron, Prime Minister of England, has declared that British society is "broken," and offered the "big society" in its place. Instead of having services paid for by the government, he wants to recruit volunteers - individuals who look out for each other as in the past. The Guardian quotes Mr. Cameron:
"I don't think this has happened because we've somehow become bad people. I think at its core, it's the consequence of years and years of big government. As the state got bigger and more powerful, it took away from people more and more things that they should and could be doing for themselves."
Mr. Cameron has noticed that when government does anything for people, bureaucracies spend vastly more than reasonable people would spend. What does it costs for an elderly parent to be helped in a relative's home versus being put in a nursing home at $30,000-$50,000 per year?
The British aren't bad people any more than Americans are, but our problem is the same: they, and we, have succumbed to the temptation to lie back and let government take care of us.
Unfortunately, not only is government care more expensive than we can afford, government doesn't take care of people very well. As the Guardian put it:
... [the liberal elite] is wrong in its immediate assumption that it is the state’s job to look after our parents when they get decrepit. In fact, the one thing we know for certain about the state, from the terrible recent Panorama exposé and other reports, is that it does this job very badly indeed. [emphasis added]
Two Wrong Assumptions, Not One
The first decade of the new millennium has demonstrated that there were actually two wrong assumptions behind the founding of the welfare system, only one of which was foreseen.
The first assumption, that people would continue to work hard even if the government took care of them, was expected to be wrong by conservatives. The second wrong assumption wasn't really understood by anyone; even people who thought that government shouldn't try to take care of everyone thought it could.
But it can't. Study after study, news article after news article, show that government simply can't take care of people. Even the New York Times is realizing that most government programs fail:
Over the past 50 years, we’ve seen a number of gigantic policies produce disappointing results — policies to reduce poverty, homelessness, dropout rates, single-parenting and drug addiction. Many of these policies failed because they were based on an overly simplistic view of human nature. They assumed that people responded in straightforward ways to incentives. Often, they assumed that money could cure behavior problems. [emphasis added]
David Cameron is trying to reawaken the British sense of responsibility. Back in the days of the "stiff upper lip," one could say, "There'll always be an England." To his credit, Mr. Cameron has recognized that without individual responsibility, without major changes in behavior, there's no way the British can afford to be England any more.
We wish Mr. Cameron well in his efforts to turn England around. If he can, well and good.
If he and the rest of Europe can't, though, the entire European economy will collapse into the Confucian abyss of economic and governmental collapse, chaos and anarchy. Eventually a strongman who'll bring order but destroy freedom. If that happens, those who can't take care of themselves will starve because the government will be unable to care for them any more.
The welfare state cannot go on. Not merely because it shouldn't, not only because it crushes the human soul and destroys the last vestige of freedom, but because no country anywhere - not America, not Britain, not Greece, not any nation - can afford it. We'll either avoid disaster by cutting spending the hard way regardless of screaming, or we'll cut spending the very hard way by total collapse.
We call spending cuts the hard way because nobody wants to give up a dime of benefits. Wisconsin teachers lied about being sick and rioted against budget cuts. Connecticut unions refused to accept a freeze which didn't cut pay at all. Minnesota state government shut down because the politicians can't agree on a budget - one side wants to cut spending, the other wants to raise taxes. European elites are criticizing the rating agencies for downgrading European debt - they'd rather shoot the messenger than cure the problem. Cutting costs enough to avoid collapse is a hard way indeed.
Personally, we'd prefer the hard way to the very hard way, but our politicians, government employees, and other leeches want to spin things out as long as they can.
The longer they wait, the longer they try to keep the welfare state going, the messier the crash will be when it hits the wall and stops.
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What does Chinese history have to teach America that Joe Biden doesn't know?
VERY well written adn very interesting site. Didn't know you existed until this morning.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences.” –C.S. Lewis
Keep in mind that the half a million per household number is unfunded LIABILITY. That will only become real debt IF WE CHOOSE to fund the promises of Obama. All we have to do is gut entitlement spending, and that half a million figure disappears.
Robbing an individual of their personal responsibilities is truly damaging to that individual, and is a form of evil derived by others who desire power to control the lives of others.
Dear Scragged,
I am a retired Federal Employee and I am sick and tiered of hearing people run down the Federal Employee. I am also a veteran and secured Federal employment through the Viet Nam veterans employment act. I worked for the Navy Supply Systems Command as a Computer programer/analyst. There were a few slackers that should have been terminated but the AFGE union in many cases prevented this. You have slackers, and office politicians in every business. Most of the people I worked with were hard working dedicated people who voluntarily went above and beyond what was expected, because they cared. We worked this way in spite of being paid around 20% to 30% less than our private sector counterparts.
We usually did a better job than the contractors, and we were there tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year to support and improve on the work we had already accomplished.
Yes we have a very good retirement benefit but we earned it. We contributed 7% of our paycheck each pay day. We also paid medicare tax.
The Federal Employee pays all the same taxes that any other worker pays.,
even social security. That means that we pay part of our own salary. Who else does that besides government workers. We are not all Bureaucrats.
Utterly wrong, Frank.
1) Private businesses have incentive to sack lazy/unmotivated employees. You, personally, may have worked hard for your keep, but many other government employees don't and it's virtually impossible to fire them.
2) Federal employees are decidedly NOT paid less than their private counterparts. That is the exact opposite of the truth. Study after study, article after article has documented that federal employees get FAR MORE than their private counterparts and, to add to that, you get paid more even during a down economy.
Some articles to get you started:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-03-04-federal-pay_N.htm
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2011/may/31/77000-feds-paid-more-than-governors/
http://reason.org/news/show/public-sector-private-sector-salary
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/public_sector/article6974029.ece
3) Paying social security does not mean that you "pay your own salary". That is absurd for a number of reasons.
First, no current SS contribution pays for the contributor in any way, shape or form. All SS contributions go directly to pay for retirees. In other words, on Friday when SS money is taken out of your check, it goes directly to some granny in Florida a few days later.
Second, you don't pay for your pension AND SS at the same time. You pay for one or the other. There are a few federal agencies that take both but it's a partial-contribution plan, not fully one or the other.
Lastly, your statement "we earned it" demonstrates why your kind are so despised by normal Americans. That attitude would be laughable if it wasn't so galling to taxpayers. Few, if any, other industries believe that "I deserve a pension!" simply because I showed up to work for 30 years. Utterly ridiculous. You are only owed pay for what you worked, nothing more, and every other normal American understands that. The rest of us pay attention to our savings and investments because we understand that it what we will retire on.
So not only are you paid more, but you believe that your nut should be covered for decades beyond the time you stop working, nevermind what you personally have saved or invested.
You're a bloated wasteful lot who doesn't see the marketplace objectively.
If America still cared about the Constitution, 99.999% of you wouldn't exist.
The current budget problems aew not the fault of poor people. Wall Street went bankrupt. General Motors went under with Chrysler. Working people and those who are still looking for work do not control corporations. Ronald Regan let the rich pay less income tax and bent the accountability rules. Other presidents did not tighten the rules. The US spent 739 billion dollars on a ten year useless war. Are we taking care of our veterans? No.
Working people will work if there are jobs for them. Living on welfare is demeaning. People living off trust funds are the real slackers.
Finally, the first civil war in the US was the revolution. We lost the War of 1812. How many people, 600,000?, died during the war from 1861 to 1865? Were their deaths necessary? What about the wounded? There are always more wounded than dead in warr. And the civilians? What happened to the freed slaves? Did they all find jobs? No.
Thank you for reading my comment.
It has been reported that 52% of Americans are receiving welfare, working for the government, or for a company that does contract work for the government. None of these people provide a salable good or service. They are non producing ciphers.
A potato farmer was forced into bankruptcy by the IRS. His farm was laying fallow, his equipment was sold for pennies on the dollar. (I worked for the company that moved the equipment to the sales yard).
He got a job working for the Air Force. He was removed from the producing sector and put into the non-producing sector of the population. He no longer created jobs. He no longer bought new equipment or had old equipment repaired, that created jobs.
Mr. Robillard is among the small percentage of government employees at all levels that actually done a job. Notice in your travels the number of men or women that are watching someone else do a job.
Sewer pipes were being replaced here in Las Vegas. One morning as I left my apartment to go to market, I noticed some construction equipment that was not being used. There were three backhoes, one dump truck, and two pickups sitting at the curb. Seven men were looking in a hole in the street. I went over to see what had their attention. They tried to stop me because I didn't have a hard hat. I climbed over some orange netting and looked in the hole. There was one lone Mexican, probably an illegal, with a shovel, leveling the dirt for the next section of pipe.
They were waiting for the crane that would lower the section into the ground, even though any one of the backhoes would have done the job. The government regulations prevented the job from being done by the backhoes.
Each piece of idle equipment, each idle man was costing money. Taxpayer money.
A gentleman told me of a new Transit System hub that was constructed at a cost of, he said %40,000,000,00. "And it didn't cost the taxpayer any money, the money came from the stimulus funds." I asked where the stimulus funds came from and he said "the government." I asked where the government got the money, and he said the government has a lot of money. When I asked where the government got its money, he didn't know.
He had been unemployed for over a year, was receiving food stamps for the first time in his life, and had been forced to sell his home and move in with family members.
He couldn't or wouldn't see what had happened. And that is what we are up against. The wall of stupidity that our educational system has produced is one of the primary problems.
I'm afraid that an armed uprising is in the offing. There are too many unhappy people in this country as well as other countries, who would rather be supporting themselves, but can't because of the interferences of the governments that are owned or controlled by the international banksters.
Thank you,
Robert Walker
1. If we were to sack all of the public sector retirement deals, would you all agree that the employees should be given back the percentage of their incomes they put into their retirement plans? At what interest rate?
2. The thrust of this article seems to be that the world would be a better place with NO unionization whatsoever. I'm skeptical. Unions did not drop out of the sky -- they formed in response to very real abuses being heaped on workers. If we were to scrap all unions, what apparatus would be put in place to prevent those same abuses from recurring? I'm looking for an answer better than "the market will take care of it", because the market clearly did NOT take care of it in the past as evidenced by the very existence of the unions in the first place.
@twibi,
Actually, they DID earn a pension if that was part of their contract for showing up for work, in exactly the same sense that they earned their pay.
I agree, by the way, with the sentiment that the unions are able to use money to unfairly influence the political system. The answer to that problem is not to crush the unions -- it is to reform campaign finance. The unions are only a fraction of the many groups that use their money to unfairly influence the political system. Crushing the unions in order to stop money from influencing American politics to the detriment of the citizens makes about as much sense as crushing AIPAC in order to stop money from influencing American politics to the detriment of the citizens -- it's only a partial solution.
The problem isn't lazy government employees so much. It's the hardworking and productive ones that do the real damage.
Sack 1 Regulatory Bureaucrat, Create 98 Private Sector Jobs
http://www.americansforprosperity.org/050311-cost-regulatory-bureaucrats-0#ixzz1LNdpHhZf
"If we were to sack all of the public sector retirement deals, would you all agree that the employees should be given back the percentage of their incomes they put into their retirement plans? At what interest rate?"
Sure, the few that actually paid into it. A lot of union pensions are vested WITHOUT any contribution. Most others have a small contribution.
This is no different than being in favor of abolishing Social Security and giving the contributions back to the contributor. I'm in favor of that too.
We already have an apparatus to deal with corporate abuses. It's called the rule of law. If a boss is abusing you in a way that is legal, stop working for him and go somewhere else.
It's important to also remember that a lot of the factory/dock worker 'abuses' from a hundred years ago where tremendously fictionalized. Guys like Upton Sinclair took a sprinkle of truth and made up the rest. There were numerous rebuttals which were all ignored. If we feel the need to "protect workers from corporate abuse", best to know what that abuse actually was. Otherwise, you're just tying the hands of the marketplace and stomping on the Constitution for nothing.
twibi,
I worked in private industry for 13 years after separation from active duty in the Navy. I contributed to social security, medicare and medicaid during that time. Federal workers pay federal income tax, state, and local income taxes and medicare tax. True those under Civil Service Retirement System did not pay social security tax, those under the new retirement system do. I also invested 5% of my pay in a 401K fund, am private mutual fund and my own savings. I pay for my own medical insurance to the tune of $430 per month, I do not use medicare part b,c,d, or e. I do not use medicaid either. As for the cost of federal employees and what they make, you can fudge numbers and make them say anything you want by the way your present them. May I ask if you are a veteran??
Frank R.
No, I'm not a veteran, and I don't believe that makes one shred of difference.
I have worked in and out of the federal space for many years. Not as an federal employee but as someone who works nearby. Many in my family have as well - both as employees and contractors.
The federal employees I work with/am around believe that their pay, healthcare, retirement, etc are worse than the private sector even though they're about 15% higher. At least half of them do busybody work that would be meaningless in any other industry, except that here their boss doesn't want to get rid of them because he's proud of "how many employees" are in his division. I've seen this in three completely-different unrelated federal agencies.
This is also during a RECESSION when many of their private counterparts were laid off or had pay decline.
Frank, you obviously sound like someone who is not typical in the federal space, but surely you must see that? You are the exception to a very clear rule.
I am going to start at the beginning of this cracked crock and the first dribble to spill out: "Our ruling elites act as if all the world's poverty is caused by American wealth."
"Our" is not specifically identified.
The, "ruling elites" are not specifically identified.
And the assertion that they "act as if all the world's poverty is caused by American wealth." is simply rhetorical balderdash.
And this core sentence is based on the rhetorical blather which is an interpretation of the rhetorical balderdash of the dialectical opposition in the first place.
In other words - this whole article is a leap deep into the fairytale caldron of myths that drive the false paradigm. And this article does exactly what that paradigm is designed to do—which is to exacerbate the divisions, it supposedly decries.
It is my assertion that the author of this article simply has no comprehension of the issues he pretends to talk to but merely strings “conservative” talking points together weaving an emotionally based drum beat of common themes and rhetorical zing-words into a long twisted fabric of Newspeak PR.
In other words it is a diaper load.
The commentary it has ignited is simply a shotgun blast of prefabricated engrained yada the speakers already have sealed in there minds as to how the world works and they are not addressing anything but the “flavor” of this soupy drivel.
As a student of social engineering, it is fascinating to see the results of the programming in action.
ww
i read most comments,and most were not on subject track,the divide between gov. and mainstream America is creating an atmosphere of desperation,but of course the people doing meth,crack, are laying on their bloated fat asses,waiting for their next welfare ck.the article says 52%of America is supporting this crap as 48% sucks on a kfc wing. the revolution is coming quicker than you think,as this is not sustainable,and our fearless leader is some kind of plant,sent here to bring America down.you can argue all you want against me,but you only have to look at his policies,and track record to see he hates us and what we stand for. impeach this man !!!
"as 48% sucks on a kfc wing"
That line made me laugh out loud. Thanks, Jon. :-)
ww knows a lot of big words.
Deconstruction:
"Our" is not specifically identified.
The term "our" is like "we" a generality so vast as to be meaninless.
Does the author refer to his immediate audience of "conservatives"?
Does he mean the people of the United States as a whole?
Does he refer to the people of the world?
The, "ruling elites" are not specifically identified.
Is this ruling elite, the government in DC?
Is it the elite of a specific party?
Is it a "Western" elite, say an Anglo-American elite?
Or is it an elite including Anglo, American and European?
Or is it really a ghostly figure that the author cannot actually identify because he has never thought an jot past his language, and assumes that the "ruling elite" has some universal definition that everyone agrees on, so to hell with specifics in communicating his ideas.
And the assertion that they "act as if all the world's poverty is caused by American wealth."
This assertion has been a "conservative" charge for generations. But is this really the way American policy works in the real world?
To understand the real workings of "American Policy," one must first attend to the first two mysteries..*.what is meant by "we {our}" - *Who is the elite that drives such a policy.
And finally is *"American poilicy", driven by Americans for American interests?
ww
"ww knows a lot of big words."~Robert Walker
Words all stand for idea's--especially when you can define them.
You aren't going to take an "anti-intellectual" stance, like the tough guys in HS might take are you?
Is it "not cool" to use "big words"?
Do the hated "Liberals" use "big words" and that means that I am one of the hated enemy?
Where's the beef? What IS your beef?
You gotta beef mahfah? How do I put this to land it in the range of your comprehension???
ww
Excellent article...not sure why this site has not had more exposure but glad I am aware of it now. Keep telling the truth without the sugar coating, America has to know what is coming, why it is coming and what we can do to prepare!
@Willy,
The answer to your questions depends on what the word "is" is.
"but our President and his party blame the world's ills on America."
When the second sentence of your essay is an outright lie or hyperbole, there is no need to read further.
The problem with the article and all who praise it, is that it misidentifies the core problem.
Where did the wealth of America go?
It was vacuumed up in a ponzi scheme by the international banking cabal, in cahoots with the fraudulent posers pretending to be
the government" in DC.
All the hysterical chatter about "welfare", "entitlements", "Free Trade" v "Socialism" is dialectical chitterchatter monkey flatulence.
The greatest losses of wealth are poured into an imperial military, never to return. The economic structure was dismantled, not when Obama entered office, but drip by drip for the last 100 years.
The term "free trade" bandied about by the junkyard dogs of the Chicago School of Economics ala Milton Freidman is Newspeak lala land nonsence.
That system is the most totally manipulated system yet developed by the scam artists of high finance.
Everyone here is essentially speaking INSOC.
And if you don't know what that means--look it up, maybe you'll learn something.
ww
EDIT: *INGSOC rather than *Insoc as written above.
My apologies to the nonexistant character who might actually have the curiousity to look it up.
ww
You had me until "...public sexual assaults by TSA". Thanks. Please put me on the list of sex offenders who are trying to keep you safe when you fly. The system could be improved, I agree, but TSA are sex offenders and you owe each of them an apology for that characterization.
Correction: ARE "not" sex offenders.
"The answer to your questions depends on what the word "is" is"~Werebat
The answer to a lot of questions depend on deconstructing such inane Newspeak flatulence as this.
Clinton was a tool. All the members of Congress who impeached him were tools. It was scripted political theater--just like the Punch and Judy show today over "shutting down government".
GHWB was a tool before him. Bush Jr. a tool after him. Obama the last in a long line of tools, actors, used car salesmen.
Modern Politics is all distraction - circus.
The People of the United States were never meant to consider themselves, "Taxpayers" "Consumers" "The listening audience" "The viewing audience" or even "the voters"...they were meant to be CITIZENS.
All those other monikers are discriptors for, "subjects"--not citizens.
"Subjects - Slaves - Serfs"...choose your word, this is what the TVZombies have become and will remain until they drown in the fluids of their own crumbling infrastructure.
Why? Because they are marks on the fairway, chumps that can't even figure out a simple ponzi scam being played on their heads, because they are distracted by seductions and bright colored lights in motion.
Idiots get the killing fields they deserve. It is a historical cycle.
Welcome to the New World Order...suckers.
ww
WW, we've all read 1984 -- and you are something of a snark knight. Look THAT up, if you please.
Brian -- you *ADMITTED* it! Everyone, a real TSA employee *ADMITTED* that they're all... oh, wait... Never mind.
Tell us, Brian, how many terrorists have you personally caught? How many has your entire DEPARTMENT ever caught? The number is still zero, unless I'm mistaken.
TSA = Thousands Standing Around
@Brian Y Rogers
You must be joking.
There are a couple of Scragged articles that have taken the TSA issue apart in pieces that you desperately need to read.
Ah, yes, here they are...
http://www.scragged.com/articles/the-tsa-and-america-s-turning-point
And other ones...
http://www.scragged.com/articles/tsa-lying-down-on-the-job
http://www.scragged.com/articles/tsa-tyranny-topples-texas
http://www.scragged.com/articles/the-tsa-outdoes-itself-twice
http://www.scragged.com/articles/tsa-can-finally-force-terrorists-to-reveal-all
TSA is a failed experiment in Police State governance through and through.
"Please put me on the list of sex offenders who are trying to keep you safe when you fly."~Brian Y Rogers
Yea..."It's a hard job, but we have to do it" {said by someone infamous, during another infamous period of political oppression}
"I was only following orders"...hmm...that seems to have it's genesis in that same infamous period.
Now honestly Brian, who can blame someone for taking a job--any job in this shrunken head system?
But as far as "Keeping you safe"--you are buying PR psychobabble.
"The War on Terror" is a hoax - a fraud, based on rumors and lies and stories they made up.
I don't see it so much as "sexual assault" as an attack on dignity, and a system of oppression, a tuning of the Amerikan psyche to comply. To comply with gestapo measures and despotism.
It is always the most ignorant that fall into such positions of mock authority - and the trap of "just following orders," because they do not comprehend the larger picture they contribute to.
Before you stick your rubber glove into one more pair of pants, you should attend to some self reflection. Attend to some investigation into the last ten years of rabid propaganda and pathetically transparent lies.
If not, you have only yourself to blame for being characterized as a sexual ghoul working for tyranny.
ww
Werebat,
I don't have to look up "snark", I already know the definition.
I also already know your disingenuous manner on blogs.
I never forget.
I never forgive.
And you are not to be trusted. I got that messagen strong and clear.
You are neither as clever nor as opaque in your rhetorical mishmash as you think you are.
ww
Excellent definition of the current situation.
But, I hope we can find a better solution. No one knows where this will go, but it is not hard to see the problem--that is, it is not hard for those who want to see. The American people have fallen victims to the myth of "progress", believing that in a modern world, life should become easier instead of more productive, with innovation.
The most important idea in the author's piece is that we have been living on borrowed money, and can no longer afford the spending that has been going on--simple math. This says it all--there will be change, and it can't be more spending; and taxes can't solve the problem, no matter who spins it. But, I believe that we still have a choice. I believe that the period of perceived luxury for all, that has existed in the US, is short enough that some memories go back to reality.
The hard left cannot be changed. The hard right is about the size of the hard left; and, the remaining 50-60% of citizens elect our "leaders". This is the "Independent" group who usually stay tuned out to current affairs and vote for people who have name recognition or can speak clearly. If half of the Independents became half awake, the US could upright itself in 2 election cycles. We might even get honest people in Washington who actually represent the people--wouldn't that be amazing?
But, I believe that you can wake people up when times get hard enough to make them think. And, I am absolutely certain that hard times are going to be with us until there is a major change. We have reached the end of the period of being able to borrow our financial well-being, and we certainly have not been producing it. When the burden becomes oppressive enough on those who still produce, they will make a change.
A question--
Can anyone explain to me why people can't understand that all taxes are paid by consumers? Corporations and the "rich" pass the cost of taxes back into the goods and services they own and produce--if they don't, the corporations go broke, and the "rich" sell their stock and move to another country. How can so many people fall for the con that the government only taxes "big corporations" and the "rich"?
Our present crisis - overwhelming public debt and obligations - are uncannily similar to the conditions that preceeded the coming to power of Mussolini's socialist party, Hitler's socialist party, and Lenin's communist party. All three regimes ended up in terror and mass murder, and, of course, wars. The communist regimes also produced utter poverty. Our present communist regime under Mullah Obama is rapidly nationalizing private enterprise, starting with a number of banks, insurance and mortgage companies, health care system, and pretty soon oil & gas companies, coal mines, transportation companies, electric utilities...Abu Hussein al-Mombassa also will use his system of local soviets (that's the Russian word for community organizations) to falsify elections by massive fraud; ACORN, SEIU, AFL-CIO, Teamsters, AFT, NEA, AFSCME, and other goons and brownshirts, financed by the still unspent $9 billion from the stimulus bill, are getting readu for action.
Willey,
I replied to your comments, when I should have posted in the comment section.
Basically, I said that your posts are worth reading. The problem that I see is that you write over too many heads. The American public reads at about a fifth grade level, and you write for college graduates. If yu want to influence a large number, write more plainly, please.
Another post that you put up was a bit harsh, but I thought not harsh enough.
Harsh is watching your neighbor being raided by a SWAT team. Harsh is an illegal gaining entry to a Nuclear Power Plant as happened in Arizona last week. Harsh is 10 year old girls and boys sold into sexual slavery by the coyotes that smuggle people from Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen and other countries that have sworn to do us harm. Harsh is having your daughter raped and murdered by an illegal alien who had once been deported and was back in this country illegally. This happened to a friend of mine. Harsh is having two border patrol agents jailed for shooting a once convicted drug smuggler while he was in this country illegally.
You do good, Willey, you can do better.
Peace and Love,
Robert Walker
@P Jones
Very well said, sir. I like these sentences:
"The hard left cannot be changed. The hard right is about the size of the hard left; and, the remaining 50-60% of citizens elect our "leaders". This is the "Independent" group who usually stay tuned out to current affairs and vote for people who have name recognition or can speak clearly"
"Can anyone explain to me why people can't understand that all taxes are paid by consumers?"~P Jones
It is because the vast majority, including yourself do not understand "Money."
There is no "Money," used in this system. The Federal Reserve Note is not a ticket of 'wealth', it is a ticket of 'debt'.
Again, it is a system based on a giant ponzi scheme set up by the International Banking Cabal in 1910 and applied in 1913.
The corporations that have grown up around this system do not contribute ANYTHING of substance, but play the circular game of "musical money" with their banking masters.
The "Fractional Reserve" concept is a "fictional reserve" in reality -- there are NO reserves - only fictional accounting in ledgers...a grimoir not an honest book at all.
ww
Willy,
How is it you know I cannot be trusted, when the message you got came from me? It would seem you are trusting me on the point that I cannot be trusted, and if I cannot be trusted...
Anyway, if you're right about the grand banking conspiracy, why not just join them? If you can't beat them...
Robert Walker,
Thank you for explaining your remarks to me Robert.
Believe me...I understand "harsh," it is my driving force to counter the harshness, they rampant criminality, the insanity propagated by the Machiavellian system {is that too high form of language?}
I do admit I am long past primers and 'Civics 101', but some of these concepts simply demand a sophsticated language to express them...
I am at a loss in the realm of 'Run Spot Run'.
I try to put things in as common a language as I can...the problem is that the 'common language' has been perverted by this Left/Right rhetorical game. I should think that anyone can look up the term "dialectical" and get a sense of what it means.
You understand, Scragged hails itself as a collection of "smart people."
I took them at their word and tried to communicate with them on a "smart person's" level.
I am met with...how to describe it without the appearance of arrogance..?
I don't really know. There are varying degrees of response. Some understand and pretend not to as per some personal agenda. Some are simple and don't get it. Most are brainwashed by the PR system.
How to crack through all of this is not so much and intellectual exercise as an "emotional" one - as that is the way modern propaganda works - playing on emotions.
The main problem I have is in using simplistic language seem like "talking down" to the lowest common denominator. And that seems like hubris. It is a dilemma for certain.
ww
Willy;
Calm down. If you will help me wake up the Independent voters and gain sanity from the current insanity in Washington; then, I will help you gain repeal of the Federal Reserve Act and return to a hard money standard.
"How is it you know I cannot be trusted.."~Werebat
Is your memory so short?
You don't remember the stupid game you played, until I finally said you were being stupid? All set to a pattern to which others could jump me for using "ad hominem"?
You are playing scrabble with a loaded bag of extra letter chips.
You are a disingenuous came player.
"Why not join them if you can't beat them"???
Idiot.
ww
I found this article to be spot on! It definitely is telling the truth of what will eventually happen to every country around the world that allows half or more of it's citizens to live off the other half. This is simply common sense. The working class cannot carry the load of the government dole-riders. Something has to give.
P Jones,
I am perennial calm. I am Zen. I am not excitable. But I am serious.
I am simply rapid in thought. It is not a matter of being excited, it is a matter of long arduous training and study.
I am sorry, it is too late. Voting is a scam. Cleaning up this mess within a system so totally corrupted from the inside is now impossible.
The doors to the rooms of power are locked.
I have been speaking out to this for more than 30 years.
Now, only at the moment of fruition--when the casino is calling in the chips and escorting the customers to their cells, do some amongst us begin to stir.
The Republic is Lazarus, needing a miracle to raise it from the dead.
This is not a blunt reply to stop our conversation. If you think I am wrong, tell me how and why.
ww
"The hard left cannot be changed. The hard right is about the size of the hard left; and, the remaining 50-60% of citizens elect our "leaders". This is the "Independent" group who usually stay tuned out to current affairs and vote for people who have name recognition or can speak clearly" "
I am one of those 50-60% independents. Boy, have we changed from that pathetic crowd. Thanks to the Tea Party and talk radio we no longer "stay tuned out" but are now watching our leaders with eagle eyes. Our self-inflicted blinders are off now. We don't always agree with the intensity of each others' stances, but we sure enough do agree that each one of us loves the USA and is concerned about the direction it's heading in and we want to rein these jackasses in before they pull the entire wagon over the cliff. Independents are becoming politically involved at an alarming rate in the eyes of both dems and repubs. We are the party they can't control. We're the wild card for this next election in 2012. I intend to vote out every bum who puts more value on other countries' citizens than they do our own people. I want our country to be run for the people, by the people and of the people. There's a lot of truth in the phrase, "We have to take back our country".
I don't agree with everything the Tea Party stands for, but I am convinced that it is full of good American people who want smaller government that stays based upon the US Constitution. I intend to vote Tea Party in order to remove all of the current bums from office and give us a chance to turn this wagon around. Whatever problems the Tea Party may present us with, even if it could set out to deliberately destroy this country, it can't hope to have the kind of success in ruining this country that our current two parties have had in the past 30 years.
We need a breath of fresh air in our government. Since both dems and repubs are scared of the Tea Party, I'd say their fear of it is a pretty good endorsement of it, myself.
Willy,
If you are referring to my dissertation on the true origin and history of the Jewish people, I note that neither you nor anyone else has ever disproven it. If you truly think it farcical, you are welcome to try. As for myself, I am but a simple Acadian lycanthrope...
But an Idiot! You are too harsh. I do not know my IQ, but it is most assuredly above 30.
I am curious, though -- what do you think of Ron Paul?
"The working class cannot carry the load of the government dole-riders. Something has to give."~Marilii
Marilii, you have totally misframed the actual problem, just like the article.
The problem is not one half of the population supporting the other half, the problem is the whole population supporting the 1/2 percent of a global elite with more than has even yet been produced.
And the population "OWES" a phony debt that is beyond the means of even hundreds of future generations to pay off--because the principle is never paid at all, and the ticker for the servicing has gone off the charts years ago.
It is debt poenage that is the problem. Not the phony "socialism" you target. That was never anything but a cover for the blatant fascism working behind the scenes.
Again, it is the phony ponzi system of the International Banking Empire that is the enemy - not half of your fellow countrymen.
This is why the message of the article and those who agree with it is the very thing that will lead to civil war if internalized and acted upon.
ww
@Willy Whitten
"The problem is not one half of the population supporting the other half, the problem is the whole population supporting the 1/2 percent of a global elite with more than has even yet been produced"
I see your game now - you're basically just another runathemill class warfare specialist.
Hate the rich because the have way more than we do and get to call all the shots.
No thanks. Instead, I'll inspire to join them through hard work and ingenuity.
This is a great article. The problem is, as I talk to my left-leaning friends, they look at it almost completely backwards from this. Instead of focusing on spending, which is clearly out of control at 25% of GDP, they focus on tax revenues as a percent of GDP, which is sitting at less than 20%, in fact in 2010 it's down to about 15%. So they assume that it's conservative's fault for continuing to press for tax breaks, to the point where we can't afford what they would call "reasonable" levels of government services. The flaw in that reasoning is that tax revenues have declined in the past couple of years even though there was no tax cut in that same time. So the revenues are going down even as a percentage of GDP, probably because the income that is taxed at the highest level is going down. In other words, a lot of upper middle class people are earning less or out of a job. So the answer would not be to raise taxes on the upper middle class or on investors and business owners, as conservatives well know.
However it would be nice to find some point of compromise between the two ways of thinking. I for one would be OK with dropping the Bush tax cuts (which I think are probably a drop in the bucket anyhow), if the left would really be willing to make serious cuts in Medicare and Social Security. But I don't think they would be willing to do that, and frankly as you mentioned a lot of tea party conservatives were elected on the promise of no new tax increases, so their hands are tied for even giving a symbolic tax increase to help the liberal leaders save face. Seems like we may be headed for a big crash, as you say.
Willy;
Same as you, I sometimes get convinced that there is no answer to the current decay in our system. But, if you move back and take the long look, the American Republic was organized in principles and values that give us the opportunity to repair lapses in our collective judgment. The Obama presidency was a bridge too far in the previous stealth mission of advancing Socialism in the US. It hit nerves that had been asleep for decades. As Marilii said above, Independents are beginning to notice (they did good in November of 2010).
Winning the election in November of 2012 is the current most critical issue for common sense Americans. Of course, if we just win it and then go back to sleep, the Progressives will get back into their little spin suits and find new ways to fool us. But, I expect the structural damages that have been done to the economy will be sufficient to keep everyone's attention for a long time to come. The American people aren't ready to be poor.
"what do you think of Ron Paul?"~Werebonk
He talks the talk. Has pretty much walked the walk.
But he is on and will remain on the margins.
If he does end up being promoted on the MSM, I would then be very suspicious as to what new game the system is out to play on us...
Perhaps not an "idiot", but the suggestion was idiotic.
I hold grudges. It is a self preserving attribute as far as I am concerned.
If you still claim a taste for the blood of the Goy...Lol...better take an IQ test today, or check in for some therapy. I understand a rubber room is soft and comfy.
ww
Willy,
Paul will NEVER be promoted by the MSM. He is always ridiculed or ignored, because those who control the MSM are afraid of him, for reasons I am sure you well know.
For what it's worth, I voted for Paul in the last election (write-in), and will vote for him again. I think he is the best visible candidate we've got as citizens.
He has a snowball's chance in Hell, unfortunately -- but not if the independents "wake up", as you say.
Unfortunately, many Americans are more aware than you think, and oppose any attempt to reform our effective Plutocracy because they realize it will mean an end to the influence of their own pet interest groups. For them, the scraps and crumbs they get to fight over are more important than high-falutin' ideals like freedom.
P Jones,
It is not that I see no hope. I just see no hope in fixing a moribund system.
New thinking is demanded in novel situations. We are in a very dangerous and novel situation--perhaps the gravest crisis the people of the planet have ever faced.
You understand that we are under attack. Do you not?
So called Full Spectrum Dominance, which is the strategic posture of the US military at this time can only be interpreted asmegalomaniac totalitarianism point blank and in your face.
BUT, and this is the crux - the US military is just the garrison for the New World Order elites. It is not under the control of the US government, both are puppets of the central control of the financial overlords.
This is why the US has been cast aside to crumble. The industrial base is spread all throughout the empire now due to NAFTA and the "trade agreements".
This is a complex story to relate. Suffice it to say, the crisis is manifold and increasing at an exponential rate.
We do not have years to turn this ship around.
A matter of months. We are on [FFWD>>] and the pause button has disappeared.
ww
"Unfortunately, many Americans are more aware than you think, and oppose any attempt to reform our effective Plutocracy because they realize it will mean an end to the influence of their own pet interest groups. For them, the scraps and crumbs they get to fight over are more important than high-falutin' ideals like freedom."~Werebat
Well, we see eye to eye on this.
On a larger note is though...this Plutocracy is 'International' in scope.
IF America could throw them off, that would mean an attack from the rest of the world...sorta like George Washington's famous vision at Valley Forge.
Is this perhaps to come to pass?
I don't know, my crystal ball has clouded up for the last ten years...
ww
Willey,
I understand the dilemma. I understand the emotion. I spent from Sept '66 to Sept '67 in Vietnam. That was before death and destruction became a daily thing. It was more sporadic, not more than twice a week.
I wrote for a small weekly newspaper for a while, and learned how to get more readers, it was a necessary evil. but found that people had a high regard for me. Doctors as well as high school drop outs. The drop outs were the ones I was after. The doctors already knew. They helped keep me on the right track. I appreciate your care. What if we, you and I, together with our posts, saved one human life. If we opened one pair of eyes. The benighted do not necessarily want to be in the dark. At least no all of them.
Peace and Love, my friend, and I consider you a friend, or my arguments would not be so vehement.
Robert Walker
"No thanks. Instead, I'll inspire to join them through hard work and ingenuity."~Ben
Jeeeze man...what to say to such dunder?
Ingenuity? They HATE ingenuity.
You can work as hard as you want you will never change your red blood to blue.
And whether you get that or not, that is your own sorry problem.
Robert Walker,
Thank you very much for your words. I know what you mean. And I work hard every day on this project of trying to awaken those on the cusp.
I had a "gang" of kids I went to HS with. All of us raised on John Wayne and 'Back to Bataan'...everyone of these guys joined the Marines...volunteering for "Nam."
Most returned...but not whole. A large part of them stayed there.
Went to an "old gang" reunion quite a few years ago now...they were all there in their fatigues, and paperback books of Vietnam war stories.
By then many of them despised me as a "liberal anti-war traitor"...
Anyway...most were there around the time you mention. We were mostly 65 grads, some 64.
My history is widely variant to that. Being a natural born artist, poet, singer...well I admit it, I had an easy life in some ways. I made a living 'playing' - doing what I would do for free for money. But it is also a hard life, in a world run by beancounters and conformists. Making ones way in a world full of jealousy. Yes there is all this talk about respect for 'merit' in this country. I can tell you first hand of the jealousy over having talents, looks, etc.
Before I reveal too much, just let me say that I appreciate and accept your offer of friendship.
I am very glad to meet you Mr. Walker.
ww
"Blue" blood is relative, my cynical friend.
In the past 15 years, I've built my wealth from nothing to a business that does $12 million a year. I have 56 employees and 12 contractors.
I'm doing a pretty good job working my way there, Willy.
Class welfare is lazy.
You are fooling yourself Ben. I have friends with hundreds of millions. they are no more invited to the real deal than you will ever be.
Blue blood IS relative...just not in the manner you meant it.
And if there were any in your veins this is the last place you'd be hanging out on the Internet.
Obama is a prima donna in a cheap suit.Wall Street selected him to do their bidding and continue the crony collectivism that George Bush championed. Communism is the great invention of the Khazar global banksters, used as the capitalist tool to consolidate their grip on the corporatist global gulag.
Since the Federal Reserve is now monetizing the debt, the dollar is inevitably doomed. So what is the point with this political dance? It is time to strip off the costume and bare the Realpolitik to the bone.~SARTRE
“If American politics does not look to you like a joke, a tragic dance; if you have enough blindness left in you, on any plea, on any excuse, to vote for the Democratic Party or the Republican Party (for at present machine and party are one), or for any candidate who does not stand for a new era, then you yourself pass into the slide of the magic-lantern; you are an exhibit, a quaint product, a curiosity of the American soil. You are part of the problem.”~John Jay Chapman
“Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress.
But I repeat myself.”~Mark Twain
ww
Mr. Whitten,
In a discussion with several people with black skin, I suggested that the only difference between George Bush and our fearless golfer, I don't like using his name, is the color of the skin they are wearing. George could remember his lines better. I still maintain that belief. They both have the same ideological puppeteers. "Shaddup, and gimme da money!"
Robert
Robert,
Yes, exactly right - as far as practical effect, this could very well be a GWBush 3rd term - only the Kenyan gets away with far more with his dandboy smooth talk neurolinguistic hypnochatter.
It is more than obvious for those who pay attention, for those who care.
The empire is on a hysterical rampage at this very moment.
As Malcolm once remarked, "The chickens have come home to roost."
This is exactly the Homeland Security State. It is the 'Phoenix Program' run as a domestic terror program. What is worse it is a panoptic maximum security state. Eyes everywhere, all transactions monitored, all web and email discussions monitored.
As I said above at some point, Full Spectrum Dominance is just another way of saying TOTALITARIAN. This is the sci-fi 21st century schizoid version of those that came before. But it is the efficiency available to the technocrats that make it unescapable.
When there is nowhere to run, nowhere to hide...
Stand and fight is the only option.
Taking Tiger Mountain through strategy...
Some say I am cynical, a doom and gloomer. This is not true.
We have already won - it will only take time to see this manifest.
I know, I have eyes that have seen the infinite. It is a sacred circle.
A knowledge that cannot be transmitted in words.
Seek silence, she will speak to you there.
ww
Your comments on the South and The Civil War are so off base that I do not know where to begin. Your self acclaimed Northern moral superiority is ignorant of many facts. The North was as much or more to blame for the Civil War than your article implies. I suggest that you read
"Secession, State and Liberty" which was written by historians with the assistance of the Ludwig von Mises Institute.
@bassboat - Scragged has pointed out that the South rubbed the North's face in slavery with the Dredd Sctott decision. The Northerners were willing to ignore slavery, but with tech Fugitive Slave Act, they had to participate.
http://www.scragged.com/articles/federalism-slavery-and-freedom-s-end-1
You are right that the first civil war was about states rights and individual liberty, but not the way you think - the North had a right not to participate in slavery and the South forced them to get in involved.
Similarly, liberals deny everyone the right to ignore abortion and the right to ignore homosexuality - it's "In your face." May turn ugly.
Jamie: Look, slavery is an abomination but that is not the point. The Dred Scott decision was a legal decision albeit it a right conclusion to a wrong law. It was the Supreme Court that ruled and it was they who rubbed it in the North's face, that is fact, not opinion. My comment on the North being more responsible was their one sided tariff advantage that they had over the South. The Civil War was as much about unfair taxes that the South was forced to pay as it was about State's rights and unfortunately slavery. As for Lincoln you really just have to read the book to get just how he felt about the slaves, it was terrible and for him to be remembered in the way is remembered is simply ignoring his speeches in order to be politically correct. Take the time to read the book and I think you will have a different perspective on that era of our history as a nation.
Hohosexuals are not pedophils. They have the right to live as they please..
Willy, next you'll be telling us that the death of that guy who blew the whistle on Rupert Murdoch really WAS suspicious... and that's just crazy!
Tell me then Werebat, in what it is crazy to be suspicious when there is so much at stake here?
Do you have any of the details of this death?
You brought it up, not me.
I would have nothing to say on the matter until I look into it closer.
ww
Earlier, someone was debating the federal employee issue and that they are never able to be fired.
USA Today just released this study:
"Federal employees' job security is so great that workers in many agencies are more likely to die of natural causes than get laid off or fired"
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2011-07-18-fderal-job-security_n.htm
This would be even more interesting if it revealed that Federal employees were more likely to die from UNnatural causes than to get laid off - the only way to get rid of a bureaucrat is to shoot them! :-0
Isn't a military man/woman considered a "Federal employee"?
I understand quite a few of them HAVE been shot. [?]
ww